ZcashdApplication · Electriccoin

CVE-2020-8807

MEDIUM · 5.3 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-02-05
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.1.1 or later.
See remediation →
62/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In Electric Coin Company Zcashd before 2.1.1-1, the time offset between messages could be leveraged to obtain sensitive information about the relationship between a suspected victim's address and an IP address, aka a timing side channel.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · moderate confidence

Zcashd before version 2.1.1-1 contains a timing side-channel vulnerability in its peer-to-peer messaging layer. The time offset between network messages can be measured by adversaries to correlate a suspected victim's Zcash address with their IP address, enabling deanonymization attacks against users.

MitigationUpgrade Zcashd to version 2.1.1-1 or later, which includes timing obfuscation countermeasures. Consider additional network-level protections such as Tor or VPN usage for heightened privacy requirements.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
ZcashdApplication
Affected:< 2.1.1

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Determine installed zcashd version
    Run `zcashd --version` or check the version string in the daemon logs (typically in ~/.zcash/debug.log)
    Affected if The reported version is below 2.1.1-1 (e.g., 2.0.0, 2.1.0, etc.)
  2. Verify zcashd daemon is running
    Check for running zcashd process using `ps aux | grep zcashd` or `systemctl status zcashd`
    Affected if The daemon is actively running and connected to the Zcash network, exposing the timing side-channel to network peers
  3. Confirm peer-to-peer networking is enabled
    Check zcash.conf for `listen=1` (default) or verify that the node has active connections via `zcash-cli getpeerinfo`
    Affected if P2P listening is enabled (the default), allowing external peers to measure timing offsets of network messages

If zcashd version is below 2.1.1-1 and the daemon is running with P2P networking enabled, the environment is affected by the timing side-channel vulnerability.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.1.1 or later
Fixed in 2.1.1
Interim mitigation

Upgrade Zcashd to version 2.1.1-1 or later, which includes timing obfuscation countermeasures. Consider additional network-level protections such as Tor or VPN usage for heightened privacy requirements.

Fix this in Zcashd Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation6.0 h
  • Implementation12.0 h
  • Testing6.0 h
  • Review / QA4.0 h
28.0 hours of engineering $4,980
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-8807 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
  • No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
  • No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data